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Orange Vegas

Less Elvis, more Johnny?

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The bundled low-quality earphones plug into a mini USB connector on the side, rather than a standard 3.5mm headphone socket. Sound quality isn’t great, lacking clarity, depth and bass.

Viva the Vegas?

Imaging isn’t a strong suit for the Vegas, either. Its 1.3Mp camera has no autofocus system or flash, making it only suitable for snap-and-send shots. The camera fires up in one or two seconds, and is very slow at capturing and processing images, taking several seconds after you click the shutter to record shots. This can result in blurred photos, and is frustrating.

The Vegas’s camera also does video shooting, though its quality is poor. It captures footage at maximum 176 x 144 and 7f/s, so playback is ropey and jerky-looking.

Orange is hoping the Vegas will appeal to users of social media, by offering the Vegas on a Dolphin pay as you go deal which includes free access to sites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace via the Orange World portal. But with only a GPRS connection, the Vegas offers a pedestrian browsing experience.

Thankfully, the Vegas offers a reliable, no-nonsense voice-call performance. Battery life isn’t so impressive, however. Orange estimates the phone can deliver up to three hours of talktime or up to seven days on standby, both low for a device that doesn't do 3G. In our tests, we regularly managed over two days between charges, albeit without working the music player too hard.

Verdict

For touchscreens, the Vegas is the cheapest game in town, and with touch control the hottest mobile must-have, there’s bound to be interest from bargain-hunting buyers. The handset’s attractively compact and mostly simple enough to use.

But the touchscreen adds little additional usability or practical functionality over and above what you get from an average low-cost handset. ®